AFL Autopsy Round 2: Essendon 16 point defeat to Fremantle

[jmoo wan]

Wut?

LANGFORD WASNT s**t

 

[JayJ20]

Few teams are winning on the road ATM. Very early days I know but traveling is taking its toll and playing at home is having its advantages.

Some of the missed calls against you lot were rough.

ATM?

Nah this is just a typical Perth performance from Essendon. Fremantle were simply better than us in most aspects of the game.

 

[TheFrenchCut]

Also, kudos to the lads for refusing to acknowledge the ball may have been dewy and pushing on with practically constant fumbles under little to no pressure at all.

The amount of confusion in our backhalf about when to go with a clearing kick and when to try and work our way out gradually was

 

[cobra land]

Relax. Result was on the cards all week.

Players on social media taking photos by the pool at the hotel, visiting wineries etc ... generally a bit of a danger sign when playing an interstate game. I wish the club and its leadership placed a greater importance on ‘these’ type of games.

Fremantle played (predictably) very well and their midfield was excellent. They won’t lose many games in Perth this year... but we will get them back on their trip to Etihad later in the year.

However it may well and truly hit the fan if we don’t produce against one of our recent bogey sides, the Bulldogs, next week. We need to see a powerful response.

Relax ??? What a pathetic performance .....whilst our suppo

 

[Red Black and Blue]

Pressure is our Kryptonite... The Tigers get us the same way...

Answers... IHNFI how you get this through to a bunch of want to be silkies...

Yes we kick ass against sides that give us a bit of air but TBH this is a serious problem for finals as we have seen x1000000 times...

Their pressure was good but not unbeatable. We were off and our loose ball fumbling invited the pressure. Clean hands and one good decision from the contest breaks pressure teams open. Just didn’t have it the sharpness early to give them doubts.

 

[Cup_o_Jobe]

If Joey wasn't Joey you'd almost drop him on the back of that performance. It was the lack of effort/pressure and that old 'drop-the-head' the moment things get tough stuff that can still creep into his game.

Stringer went missing for most of the game, but he was always going to need time to settle in the side so I'd give him a pass. And Walla hasn't had too many games as poor as that so you'd give him a pass too.

For the mids, Smith had a blinder, Hepp did enough, but uncharacteristically poor games from Zaka and Pidge, and Langford looks to be continuing his "look promising one week, all at sea the next" routine.

But for mine, it was the defense that was the real concern. I was worried we looked top heavy all week and that played out on the night. It didn't help that we couldn't stick a mark in the back 50, but we were reactive, second to the ball, and one-paced all night back there. Of the three whipping boys I think Hartley has the most chance to become a proper key-defender, but Brown and Dea are really depth players at best. If fit, you'd hope to bring McNeice in for one of them, and maybe blood a kid with the other (someone like a Redman or Ridley). Especially against a team like Footscray, having three talls and a medium defender just isn't going to cut it.

 

[horj89]

So frustrating. I had such high hopes for us tonight. Didn't handle their pressure particularly well so there is plenty to work on.

I'm interested to see what Woosha has to say.

 

[Seb78]

Our defence was in tatters tonight. Completely all over the place. It was disorganized and sloppy.

Losing Gleeson has hurt us more than what I thought it would. He balances out our defence not only with his run but also his arial work and intercept marking.

 

[Milanista28]

Zachy can't handle the tag I fear.

Woosha is s**t.

 

[cobra land]

Pay their hard earned to watch players like Daniher who could not give a flying f&$k waltz around. Feel for the supporters who paid their hard earned to watch that shower of sh$$.

 

[MertF1]

How'd I be stupid enough to add Essendon to my multi. Every year it's the same thing.

Stringer's a liability, honestly.

 

[citizen-erased]

not gonna point out players. can count on one hand the players who did well tonight.

glaring issues:
Freo had pressure on us whenever we had the ball. We rarely put any on them
Our forwards were always battling a defender. More often than not theirs were free. Or playing on Brown, so basically free.
Backline is terrible. But once we lost Gleeson & Ambrose that was always going to be the case.
forward line is a shade of what it was last year.

 

[eDPS]

Zachy can't handle the tag I fear.

Woosha is s**t.

Can’t handle a tag? He had 21 touches and 15 of them contested ,disposals weren’t up to scratch but still didn’t stop him finding the ball.

 

[naraku]

If only we had an AA CHB that wasn't currently playing as a back that we could move there.

Bingo ! I wouldn't of thought it rocket science but there you go. I Don't give a crap what anyone would say: Hooker needs to go back to CHB . Ambrose in , Brown and Hartley out.

Forward : Joe and Stewart with Begley and Stringer, Walla and Raz.

 

[Blind Turn]

Myers in Stringer to play up forward.

Walla to go out for Raz.

Brown out for anyone.

Walla was the reason we sparked up in the last qtr against Adelaide. Not ready to dump him that quickly. But yeah... Brown...

 

[justlookingaround]

Yup, disappointing, constant butterfingers in the corridor, forward entries and structure didn't work, Freo wanted it way more and we were very lucky not to get thumped - felt like we did.

Early days but Stringer is playing no better than he did last year, I really like Saad and Green tried his heart out for most the game, like he always does.

 

[fairlight_cmi]

LANGFORD WASNT s**t

You're right. He was unbelievably s**t.

 

[Milanista28]

Can’t handle a tag? He had 21 touches and 15 of them contested ,disposals weren’t up to scratch but still didn’t stop him finding the ball.

He went missing for large chunks tonight, Banfield and Freo tagged him well all night.

He was well beaten, I'd also argue our other mids provided no support.

 

[mad_monkey_j]

Typical Essendon performance. Same old garbage. Zero pressure, players running free, shithouse decision making. I don't know how many players and coaches we have to churn through before we stop making the same stupid mistakes.

 

[eDPS]

He went missing for large chunks tonight, Banfield and Freo tagged him well all night.

He was well beaten, I'd also argue our other mids provided no support.

Topped our clearances and contested possessions I wouldn’t say he couldn’t cop the tag based on that. He wasn’t at his best but still had an impact

 

[JayJ20]

You know I said this as soon as the fixture came out. We'll likely be 1-1 and Adelaide isn't the loss.

I think we have a warped view of the ladder. I really don't know what ladder we use to prepare for games.

 

[calyam]

'Josh Green was our best performed forward' is the most depressing thing I've written on BigFooty.

 

[Beerfish]

Stadium good. essington bad.

End review.

 

[quotemokc]

The passage of play when McKenna had almost 10 seconds of space in our defensive 50 and couldn't find a target was deplorable. (Not McKennas fault)

 

[Wangawuti]

If fremantle can score 100 points then unfortunately our team defense is not working.